Archive for October, 2009

Here’s to having a fun night with friends for all of you, or distributing Tootsie Rolls and miniature Kit Kats to the neighborhood kids. If any of you are curious, I had a Halloween party last night where my girlfriend and I dressed up as Fred and Daphne from Scooby-Doo.

Yesterday, Dave Cameron of FanGraphs posted this as a topic of conversation. If you want a summary, Cameron jokingly suggested that every MLB team except for the Yankees and Phillies (just because they’re in the World Series) should meet together with one bad contract in hand. The Blue Jays bring Vernon Wells’ contract, the Giants bring Barry Zito’s, etc. and in White Elephant style, each team takes home a contract from the table in the hopes that they can trade a horrible contract for one that isn’t so bad. Now Cameron didn’t seriously suggest this should happen, he just thought of it and thought it would be amusing to consider. At first thought, I had no complaints. But then, as I read the comments on his post, I realized something: The Twins don’t really have any bad contracts.

According to a new poll conducted by ESPN, only about 10% of MLB pitchers feel that even though actress and noted Los Angeles Dodgers fan Alyssa Milano recently married in August this year, she may still pursue dating one of them sometime in the future. However, what was most alarming of this 10% was that a clear majority of respondents were active players of the Dodgers.

Milano has dated four MLB players in her life: Brad Penny, Carl Pavano, Barry Zito, and Russell Martin. Of these four, only Martin is not a pitcher, with Penny and Martin both playing for the Dodgers when they dated Milano. She has been a big Dodgers fan for several years now and released her own line of Dodgers womens team apparel in 2007.

Good to see 41 people vote on my very first poll on OTM. Not surprisingly, a majority (28 votes, or 68%) of people think Jose Morales should be the backup to Joe Mauer. Only 5 for Butera (so I’m not alone!) and 2 for Redmond. I’m somewhat curious about the 4 that voted “Someone Else” because I’m unsure of who the Twins would pursue in lieu of Morales and Butera, but hey, I did put that as an option. Oh, and Joe Mauer may be that good, but Gardy won’t destroy him like Dusty Baker destroys pitchers.

Sorry for beating this dead horse again, or kicking a dead cat as my sister has started to say. Whatever, I’m metaphorically physically attacking a dead animal right now. I should have mentioned in my “About Me” that I have umpired a middle school baseball league for two summers, so I sort of can provide perspective about umpiring in the same way retired professional athletes provide perspective during a broadcast, but with fewer quotes that can be ridiculed at a later time. Thus, I can partially understand how Tim McClelland made such a poor call on Nick Swisher’s attempted tag-up during Game 4 of the ALCS. We all know that McClelland wasn’t directly watching Swisher when Torii Hunter caught Johnny Damon’s fly ball, but I feel that NO ONE has bothered to explain a possibility why he made such a bad call. So, I will attempt to fix this injustice with 2 major points.

I’d probably compare this to the Odds & Ends from MLBTR or perhaps an Aaron Gleeman Link-o-Rama with its small, non-analytical, random comments, except these will contain fewer links, will usually give an idea of what’s coming up within the next week or two, and will probably give an update on myself (related to the blog, of course). However, I can be long-winded (as my #2 Catcher post should have shown) so these may actually be like Joe Posnanski ramblingsexcept my stories aren’t as cool.

Well, sort of. I also want Guitar Hero: Van Halen and Con Air and a new laptop but that probably won’t happen and…wait, that’s not the point.

Mike Redmond’s contract is up, and soon he will become a free agent. The Twins also have a cheaper option in Jose Morales, and a mystery 3rd catcher that I’m going to throw into the ring that will cost nothing at all! Nothing at all! NOTHING AT ALL! So, here are the overviews of the three available catchers to the Twins that can be had for a million dollars or less per year.

Hello, and welcome to Off The Mark! My name is Andrew Bryz-Gornia, and I will be your main host (I am planning on adding a few minions over the next month or so) at this blog. I would talk about myself and the making of this blog, but that would be narcissistic and redundant, so I will instead direct you to the two links located in the upper right corner of this page.